Final Fantasy XIV recently introduced a number of changes to how players could make use of in-game advertisements and the game’s Party Finder tool. These efforts are to stop accounts from participating in real-money trading (RMT). Square Enix later announced that more than 7,000 accounts have been banned.
From October 28th to November 3rd, 5,734 accounts were banned for participating in RMT or other prohibited activities. 1,332 accounts additionally banned for RMT advertising. RMT more often than not comes from compromised accounts or bots advertising services for real money from a third-party website from inside the game.
“We will continue to take stringent disciplinary action against any accounts with confirmed involvement in RMT/illicit activity; players should take care to steer clear of any activity that violates the Terms of Service,” Square Enix stated in a blog post on the official Final Fantasy XIV website.
Changes to Final Fantasy XIV’s Party Finder tool included a ban on selling in-game services like Duty clears, along with prohibiting Party Finding listings under the wrong categories.
RMT has been an issue for some time across a number of MMOs, like Blizzard’s World of Warcraft and even Amazon’s recently released New World. However, World of Warcraft’s latest patch now requires players to have a Blizzard authenticator linked to an account in order to post custom text in the game’s Group Finder tool. New World also took arms against third-party sellers by implementing new restrictions for newly created accounts and lower level characters, which are often used by RMT sellers. These restrictions help prevent them from trading with other players or transferring wealth.
